Posts tagged “deer”

There is something inexplicably wonderful about going into the forest in the rains – the green is fresh and bright, and though the sightings of birds and animals are not as frequent and varied as in the dry season, the lush greenery soothes the mind and heart immensely. And when the forest is on a range of hills, like in BR Hills, it makes the trip all the more special.

Imagine shivering with cold in the middle of June! The sky was covered with clouds, and chill breezes accompanied our jeep rides through the undulating forest.

Cloud covered forest

K Gudi

The K Gudi Wilderness Camp has quaint log cottages, with thatched roofs hanging low. One night, we awoke at 3 am to the sound of someone or something pulling at the thatch! Madhavi managed to photograph the culprit the next day. She has also got some amazing shots of the landscape at BR Hills.

The camp had some really interesting denizens – on the walkway outside the cottages, I saw this colourful character…

What a dung beetle!

Our constant companions at K Gudi, especially during mealtimes, were very bold and fearless. One of them leapt onto our breakfast table as we jumped away, and another stole up to the buffet and made off with a stack of toast!! But most of the time, they were busy relaxing and bonding 🙂

There were wild boars running around in the grounds, wary, but not frightened of people. Our jeep surprised this one as we drove out.

Don't be fooled by my white whiskers - I'm very young - look at my eyes!

And just outside the camp, we met someone as curious about us as we were delighted to see him!

I'm the original 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'! Well, maybe not so bushy...

Look at his smile! Unfortunately this beautiful stripe necked mongoose didn’t hang around too long… he walked off leaving us beaming at this wonderful encounter!

We saw the usual suspects – a small herd of sambar that stood very still…

Is this still enough for your pic?

Several herds of spotted deer, including this lone stag who decided that the lush grass around was not good enough to eat…

We got caught in a sudden downpour and had to stop the jeep, and to keep us company, there was this herd of gaur, completely unaffected by the rain!

Hmm... the rain tastes good!

Maybe, but I don't like getting my eyelashes wet...

Oh give me a break! Don't be all wet!!

Yeah yeah! You stop trying so hard to be funny...

Of course, no trip to BR Hills can be complete without the elephants! In the dense forest, they are quite difficult to spot. One can come upon them suddenly, and then just as suddenly, they vanish into the greenery. We saw this little family for only a few seconds …

And no discussion of mammals in an Indian forest (except Gir!) can be complete without the tiger. No, we didn’t see one. A newbie couple (new to wildlifing) – capless, camera-and-binocularless, the guy in a pink shirt and the girl in a colourful kurta, with a new JLR employee driving them, saw one – it ambled across the track in front of their jeep! That’s life! (We’ve resolved to wear pink shirts to tiger reserves from now on :))

We did, however, see fresh signs of a tiger on our morning trek. A pugmark…

Fresh pugmark

...fresh scat...

...and fresh scent marking

The birds

We saw numerous birds, several lifers for me among them. But I couldn’t get good pictures, possibly because of the dense canopy and the cloudy weather. Here’s one…

Asian fairy bluebird

There was an abundance of orange-headed thrushes and Indian blackbirds, and the forest resounded with the song of the Malabar whistling thrush. Here’s a grainy video of one of them singing, with Garima joining in towards the end.

Another bird that we saw fairly often was the Southern hill myna, flying around in rather raucous flocks!

Having been used to shy, skulking rufous treepies, I was pleasantly surprised to see two of them sitting and preening for a long time on a bare tree!

That brings us to my favourite category of birds – the woodpeckers! A lifer for me was this yellow crowned woodpecker…

We saw of three of these cuties together, though I could film only one…

Some interesting trees…

A rather common yet fascinating sight; a strangler fig eating into another tree…

And this strange tree with deformities on its trunk looking like carvings in an ancient temple…

Hanuman? or dancing apsara?

…and creatures…

A very co-operative common toad, who allowed us to pick him up and did not jump away even after we put him down…

Sigh... nobody kissed me 😦

The largest crab I’ve seen – almost the size of a dinner plate!

Hmph! So long as you don't think I'm dinner!

And this tiny pond terrapin (just two inches long), alongside a minuscule pool of water in the hollow of a large rock! I wonder how he got there… and I wonder what will happen once the pool dries up. Narayan, the naturalist at K Gudi, said that he would most definitely become a meal for a bird of prey sooner rather than later…

You're sooo in my face!

For a species reputed to be slow moving, this one was quite chipper – and was most glad to get back into the water, where he shot across to the darkest corner. Here he is trying to get away from my camera…

…and the EVENTS!!!

Mother Nature is not exactly compassionate. We saw several instances of this on the trip.

Our second morning found this unfortunate stag near the camp’s lake, unable to get up. He had probably injured his spine in a rutting fight with another male. A vet was called for; but it seemed highly unlikely that he would be able to walk again…

A victim of cruel nature...

On our trek, we came across a small water body where a life-and-death drama was in progress. A large crab had caught hold of a common toad, and held fast as the toad struggled to get free.

Who will win?

The toad was almost as large as the crab, and for as long as we watched, both of them refused to give up.

And just a couple of feet away, the production of new life was busily in progress…

Life in the making...

Finally, the most exciting experience of the trip – while watching this black drongo busy collecting flies on the ground…

Drongo momma?

…our attention was drawn to this unusual looking bird…

Why is everyone staring at me?

A juvenile Indian cuckoo!! As we excitedly clicked away at this magnificent find, it fluttered its wings and uttered a high-pitched call. And the drongo that was busy collecting flies flew up to it and fed it!! All of us were too stunned to get any pictures or videos of the event. But we followed the cuckoo with our cameras as it flew to another branch, and then, it happened again. This time both mommy and daddy drongo came to feed their darling thief of a baby! And luckily, I managed to get a video of sorts…

And so, though we did not see a tiger, or leopard, or sloth bear, it was an extremely interesting and satisfying trip. Narayan, the naturalist at K Gudi, accompanied us on all our safaris and took us on a lovely trek. Thank you, Narayan, for all the time and attention you lavished on us! A ton of thanks to Garima for making the bookings, and to her and Jainy for driving us all the way to and from BR hills!

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to going there again – this time hopefully we’ll see a leopard!

Please excuse the corny title. But like all clichés, this is also true. Corbett is magical. It has been over two months since our trip there, but I still haven’t gotten over it. And I can’t wait to go back there again.

This account will not include any routine details about the Park, which can be found on its official website. It will only cover my experiences, with pictures and videos.

The forest and its trees

One of the magical aspects of Corbett is its varied landscape. The trees making up the main forest are sal, and the primary experiences of a tourist in Corbett are endless jeep rides through the dappled shade of the sal forest.

The sal forest

There are many species of trees in the forest – but one that I find very interesting, and which is seen in many places, is the strangler fig. One associates trees with non-violence and peace, with the Buddha, with calmness and serenity. But the reality of the strangler fig belies that philosophical connection. What better example of Nature’s dark, silent forces than a tree that kills another!

The killer tree!

A colourful feature of the forest that struck us as we drove along was a red tree that would suddenly pop up among the sea of varied green. We came across three trees that were red in colour – the kusum tree with red leaves, the Indian coral tree and the flame of the forest, both with red flowers.

A kusum tree

Kusum leaves

Flame of the forest

Indian coral tree – this one always had spangled drongoes on it, but when I tried to take a pic, they all flew away 😦

Another beautiful flowering tree we saw was the kachnaar. The tree was covered only in pink and white blooms, with several birds having a great time on it!

Kachnaar tree with a golden-fronted leafbird

Nothing like green to soothe the eyes and the soul though – and the forest showed us several shades of green. Like this tree with a creeper around it, each with leaves in different greens. I wonder what they are…

What are these two?

Dhikala

And then there were the mountain trails that took us on roller-coaster drives to cliff-sides with wondrous vistas – one such sublime vista was the view from the observation deck at the Dhikala forest guesthouse.

View from the deck at Dhikala lodge

The deck overlooked the Ramganga river and the grassland surrounding it, with hills in the background. Dhikala’s domesticated safari elephants were bathed in the river and left to graze there. I’m sure wild elephants also visit, though we didn’t see any. We did see a family of wild boars, a herd of chital, a flock of vultures feeding on a carcass (in the far distance) and several other birds. There are steps leading down from the deck to the river, barred now by an electric fence – apparently a tiger had climbed up the steps one night some years ago!

The deck also provided us with a really close encounter – a crested serpent eagle flew past just a few feet above us! All of us were too stunned to take a photograph!

Some of us were better prepared when a similar encounter occurred with a Pallas’ fish eagle on the guesthouse grounds while we were busy looking at this collared falconet.

Collared falconet

Unfortunately I was not among those – I just watched open-mouthed as the eagle winged past a couple of metres above us. Here is Garima’s photograph of the eagle, along with those of other raptors we saw in Corbett.

Staying at Dhikala, in the heart of Corbett, is an experience that is difficult to describe. We awoke early in the morning while it was still dark, to the calls of at least three different nightjars. Flocks of rose-ringed and orange-breasted parakeets flew overhead as the sun rose. Around us in the trees and on the ground were lineated barbets, Oriental turtledoves, red collared and spotted doves, chestnut-tailed starlings, crested buntings, and of course, the collared falconet. Families of rhesus macaques gambolled about.

The chaur…

In stark contrast to the thickly wooded forest is the grassland, called chaur. This is the favourite haunt of elephants as well as deer such as chital and hog deer, and of course the tiger. It is also home to several species of grassland birds.

Elephants in the chaur

Chaur around the Ramganga reservoir

…and its denizens

We visited two chaurs, Dhikala and the one around the Ramganga reservoir. At the latter, we saw a stone curlew and a jackal – both ran away, before the stone curlew decided to sit down, and remained there for a long time. The reservoir had several water birds and the chaur around it had a profusion of Oriental skylarks, many of the males busily displaying. The male skylark flies and sings at the same time for several minutes! Energetic bird indeed!

This paddyfield pipit posed very obligingly for quite some time.

Paddyfield pipit

The deer in Corbett seemed very shy, especially the hog deer. At the Dhikala chaur, this one took off at lightening speed as soon as our jeep approached, even though we were a fair distance away.

Hog deer

A herd of chital, much further away, seemed comparatively unconcerned by our presence.

Chital scape – look at that forest!

Every stalk of grass seemed to have a bird on it – bright-headed and zitting cisticolas, drongoes, pied and Hodgson’s bushchats and common stonechats.

Common or Siberian stonechat

Full frame shot – this pied bushchat was really close to the jeep – could take a few shots before he realised how close we were!

Hodgson’s bushchat – really lucky to see this rare bird!

And here is a pied bushchat with the most prominent occupants of the chaur…

Bushchat scape

…the elephants!

They are such a delight to watch, especially when the herd has little babies! All of us went berserk with our cameras!

Mommy and baby

Family of four

Here they are indulging in their favourite activity.

Our jeeps were on a trail cutting across the middle of the chaur. A herd (or part of a herd) on the right side decided to cross over to the left. We stopped the jeeps to let them pass. First the matriarch came up to the path and sniffed the air in our direction.

“I’m not saluting!”

Then the herd started to cross, a few elephants at a time.

“Last one across is a langur!”

There were a couple of babies that needed to get across. The bigger one was bolder, it walked across on its own. The tiny one was unsure, and waited till mum was alongside.

There were a couple of heart-in-the-mouth moments too. Here’s one of them…

Another such moment came when we were returning. A jeep (not one of ours) had stopped on the path as a nearby elephant kept charging when it tried to pass her. Our jeep quickly drove past, just missing the elephant as she charged again. She stopped just short of the stationary jeep, as she had done before – a mock charge!

A third such moment was when we encountered a group on the side of the road along the Ramganga. We came upon them quite suddenly, just as they were about to cross the road towards the river. We stopped. So did they. They watched us. The matriarch picked up a stick and started scratching her face. Then…

…all was well. They crossed the road and went into the river to have their fill of the cold, clear water.

There was a tiny baby in the herd, who found it difficult to maintain a foothold on the rocks in the river, and kept slipping and sliding…

Then baby fell down, and struggled to get back on its feet. Mommy and the others didn’t seem too concerned with baby’s plight.

Finally, one of the adults gave the baby a trunk-up, and they all went on their way.

Hope you liked this – please do leave a comment. Birds of Corbett in my next post…